Game Release Notes - September 22, 2017

09/22/2017 - September 22 Release Notes

PATH OF FIRE™

The Crystal Desert

The human god of fire and war, Balthazar, has reportedly been waging a campaign of terror and chaos across the lands of the Crystal Desert, desperate to claim an Elder Dragon's power for his own. While his true motives remain a mystery—along with his strange reappearance, abated strength, and claims of being betrayed—the threat he poses to the innocent people of the region is impossible to ignore. Many have fled the region altogether, caught between the war god's mysterious and deadly new army of Forged, the undead Awakened hordes of Palawa Joko, and the mindless and savage Branded minions of Kralkatorrik. As the commander, you've been summoned to the region to assist with relief efforts, but your own personal mission to stop Balthazar from upsetting the delicate balance of magic is of critical importance to all of Tyria. As the Crystal Desert and the northern domains of Elona open again after 250 years of separation, what new secrets and powers will be revealed as you race to stop Balthazar from carrying out his plans?

Mounts

Journey into the Crystal Desert and find wondrous new companions to help you explore the world. Each mount has its own special movement ability that helps you tackle a different type of terrain. Mounts can be purchased from renown merchants at mount camps after completing a special task region that teaches you about the mount and gives you some experience riding it. Acquiring a mount will also unlock its associated Mastery line, which provides you a way to progress and upgrade each mount even further!

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- Note: We have added a new assortment of keybinds to the game that are used for mounts and their abilities. There may be some conflicts with the default mount binds and your base keybinds depending on what you have set your binds to. Please review your keybinds and the new mount binds to make sure you have them set up to your liking.

Elite Specializations

Elementalist:

Weaver—Weavers can attune to two different elements simultaneously, deftly cycling them from hand-to-hand and combining them to powerful effect. They favor swords in battle, and they channel the strength of the elements using stance skills.

Engineer:

Holosmith—By harnessing the power of the sun, holosmiths create semisolid constructs of light. They wield swords in battle and gain access to powerful light weapons in their volatile Photon Forge mode.

Guardian:

Firebrand—These zealous lorekeepers are skilled in conjuring magical fire, and they use axes and mantras in close combat. Their virtues are replaced by conjured tomes that act as potent tools to rebuke enemies and protect allies.

Mesmer:

Mirage—Mirages move through battle like shifting sand, cloaking themselves rather than dodging attacks. Their graceful, swirling axes and prismatic mirrors are as deceptively beautiful as they are deadly.

Necromancer:

Scourge—Scourges channel their life force into the desert sands to summon biddable shades that damage enemies and create barriers for their allies. They use punishment skills to torment enemies while wielding torches that light the path to their destruction.

Ranger:

Soulbeast—The bond between a soulbeast and their pet is so strong that they can become one in spirit. By channeling their pet, they become a single entity, attacking with fanglike dagger strikes and using the abilities of their companion and its archetype.

Revenant:

Renegade—The legendary charr, Kalla Scorchrazor, lends the power of her warband to revenants who channel her from the Mists. Renegades fight with a short bow, firing conjured arrows through Mist portals to blindside their enemies.

Thief:

Deadeye—Mercenaries for hire who stalk and mark their targets and generate malice toward them, increasing damage and harassing them with harmful effects. They use rifles for precise kills from a distance.

Warrior:

Spellbreaker—The broken weapons of the Sunspears have become daggers in the hands of their descendants, used to strike at the very fabric of magic and strip it from their foes. They meditate to see past their enemies' defenses, and they use their adrenaline for powerful counterattacks.

Guild Hall

Speak to explorer Hashim in the Guild Initiative Headquarters to begin an expedition to claim the new Windswept Haven guild hall.

Switching to the new hall will maintain any existing upgrades you may have unlocked in the Gilded Hollow or the Lost Precipice.

Discover new decorations and emblems with which to adorn your hall and distinguish your guild.

GAME UPDATES

General

The Shining Blade Secrets instance for Season 3 Episode 6 has been adjusted to allow for better gameplay with parties.

The rest of the party can now help the owner of the instance fight off White Mantle in the Henge of Denravi illusion, and they are eligible for all achievements associated with this encounter.

Members of the party not involved in directly fighting the Manifestation of Self-Doubt can now encourage and motivate their friend, helping their skills recharge more quickly.

Fixed a bug with a steam platform in the Not So Secret jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields that caused players to overshoot the target.

Southsun Cove: Removed a duplicate of Advisor Okk from Pearl Islet.

Auric Basin: Fixed the fuzzy revealing of the "Tarir, the Forgotten City" area on the world map.

Incomplete task regions on other maps will now appear as empty hearts on the world map.

Left-clicking on achievements and similar notifications will take you to the appropriate page in the Hero panel. Right-clicking will dismiss the notification without opening it.

Right-clicking a bouncy chest will automatically take the contents if there is no selectable item for some reward types.

A text change has been made to rename "adolescent wyverns" to "minor wyverns" to avoid incongruent "veteran adolescent wyvern" spawn labeling.

Gendarran Fields: Fixed an issue in which Captain Wiley would rarely fail to respawn.

Harpoons and powder kegs in the Triple Trouble encounter will now have interact priority over player-created bundles.

Entire stacks of consumable containers can be opened with the right-click context menu. Opening will stop if the stack is exhausted, the inventory fills up, or the inventory screen is closed.

Fixed a bug in which the Living World Portal Scroll could be used to teleport while in combat or downed, if the options dialogue was open before entering combat.

Aurora now gives credit for the Legendary Collector achievement.

The final chest from the Skrilla treasure hunt event in Ember Bay is now limited to players who participated in the event.

Boons, enhancements, and conditions on bounty bosses have been reorganized to help visibility.

Fixed an issue in which Druid Runestone Fragments used the wrong icon in the vendor menus in Draconis Mons.

The Jade Maw Lens can be obtained from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs again for players on the Bifrost III collection who have misplaced the item.

Dungeons

Fractals

Shattered Observatory:

Fixed an issue that could cause solar blooms to fixate on dead players.

When the harbinger's challenge is active, there will now always be at least one available platform near the boss.

Fixed a bug in which Solar Blast would hit too late.

Time pockets will now spawn 0.04 seconds after killing a Temporal Anomaly instead of 0.5 seconds, and script improvements have been implemented to make them more responsive.

Fixed a bug in which the Temporal Realignment green circles could apply damage at the wrong time.

Temporal Realignment will now play a blue explosion effect when the mechanic is failed.

Added a safeguard to prevent two players getting Corporeal Reassignment at the same time.

Fixed a bug that could cause golems to become invulnerable for a time.

Fixed a bug in which golems were considered to be elementals.

The burning from Radiant Fury can now be dodged.

Fixed a bug in which Curved Shot did ten times more damage at tier 3 than intended.

Improved tier scaling of Curved Shot and Solar Bolt, reduced damage to downed players, and fixed a bug that caused them to hit twice.

Added a red ring to the damage fields for Curved Shot and Solar Bolt to help them stand out.

Added better tier scaling for Rolling Chaos damage.

Added teleport tripwires to prevent solar blooms from getting stuck in corners in the final boss fight.

Fixed a bug in which players might not get teleported to Arkk's platform during the final fight.

Fixed a bug in which Nova Launch could prevent Corporeal Reassignment from firing.

Golem Mark II misses the boxes and has decided to project red boxes on his electric attacks.

Chaos Isles:

Moved some damage from the Brazen Gladiator's first and second combo attacks to the third to emphasize the importance of dodging the third attack.

Moved two Mistlock Singularities to more convenient locations.

Falling off of the final boss platform will now down players instead of killing them.

Added a portal to teleport players to the anomaly boss if they get left behind.

Thaumanova Reactor:

Uncategorized:

Added a checkpoint after the first jumping puzzle if players kill all 6 harpies.

Moved a checkpoint in the prison.

Added a checkpoint after the electric stairs.

Shutting off the stairs security now immediately strips the invisible immobilization from players.

The outer gate at Old Tom will now teleport players who get stuck outside.

Reduced the tab-targeting priority of the raving asura.

Fixed a bug in which the raving asura spawned before Old Tom was completed.

Improved the final scene and reduced the wait time before Fractal Transit Query.

Underground Facility:

Stepping on the second plate in the intro section will now permanently open the first gate.

Moved the Mistlock Singularities to more convenient locations.

Volcanic:

Fixed an issue in which lava patches did not function in the boss fight.

Raids

Personal Story

Added the ability for instance boundaries to be updated dynamically as each chapter's narrative moments unfold.

Items

Utility consumables have had their beneficial effect renamed from "Nourishment" to "Enhancement" to differentiate them from food effects.

The following legendary weapons have had their custom projectile effects updated:

Bolt

Incinerator

Flames of War

A number of the new Path of Fire™ crafting materials will not have a place in material storage. This is to allow them to establish a value appropriate to their rarity. They will be added to storage in a future update.

Profession Skills

General:

Torment: Tooltips on skills, traits, and items for this condition now display increased damage against moving targets in a base-inclusive fashion consistently across all of the game, rather than separating the base damage and the moving damage.

Leeching Bolts: Fixed a bug that was preventing whirl or projectile finishers from displaying in the combat log when used in a dark field.

Pull: Some changes have been made in order to reduce the frequency of players being moved into objects and becoming stuck. You may notice that such skills pull a touch slower and are much smoother.

Knockback: Some changes have been made in order to reduce the frequency of players being moved into objects and becoming stuck. You may notice that such skills knock back a touch slower and are much smoother.

Elementalist

The weaver specialization can now be unlocked when playing through Path of Fire.

Gale: This skill will no longer queue; if able, it will interrupt other skills in order to cast.

Gust: This skill will no longer queue; if able, it will interrupt other skills in order to cast.

Earthquake: This skill will no longer queue; if able, it will interrupt other skills in order to cast.

Churning Earth: The crippling pulses of this skill will now apply 8 seconds of bleeding in addition to its current effects, bringing the total potential number of bleeding stacks from 8 to 12.

Engineer

The holosmith specialization can now be unlocked when playing through Path of Fire.

Reaper's Onslaught: Increased bonus ferocity while in Reaper's Shroud from 225 to 300 at level 80. This trait no longer reduces the recharge of shroud skills on kill but instead reduces the recharge of shroud skills by 1 second if Life Reap hits. This recharge reduction can only occur once per use of Life Reap.

Cold Shoulder: This trait no longer reduces incoming damage from chilled foes. It now increases outgoing strike damage by 10% to chilled foes.

Ranger

The soulbeast specialization can now be unlocked when playing through Path of Fire.

Lead the Wind: Fixed a bug that was preventing some longbow skills from displaying all relevant skill facts for this trait.

Light on Your Feet: Fixed a bug that was preventing some short-bow skills from displaying all relevant skill facts for this trait.

Smokecloud: Fixed a bug that prevented the smoke field created by this skill from functioning correctly if you swapped out your smokescale pet.

Flurry: Increased the number of hits at level-1 adrenaline from 8 to 9.

Structured Player vs. Player

Added new default builds for Path of Fire elite specializations.

Daily automated tournaments now have rewards for placing 9th - 16th.

World vs. World

New desert creatures have wandered into the Desert Borderlands.

Changed WvW Guild Claiming Banners (Turtle, Centaur, and Dragon) so that revenants can now use their utility skills when wielding a banner.

A new Crystal Desert Reward Track has been added.

Testimonies of Heroics has replaced where Proof of Heroics were acquired.

All items that required Proofs of Heroics to purchase are still purchasable with proofs from vendors.

Testimonies of Heroics can be used to purchase all items that were purchased with Proofs of Heroics.

Proofs of Heroics can be purchased with Testimonies of Heroics from the Heroics Notary.

A new Notarized Scroll of Desert Heroics has been added to the Heroics Notary vendor. Notarized Scroll of Desert Heroics completes a random hero challenge from the Elona region.

WvW ascended armor now has Path of Fire stats that can be selected if you own Path of Fire.

New Path of Fire recipes have been added to the Heroics Notary vendor.

Armor damage is now automatically repaired when returning to home instances.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

Three additional shared inventory slots may now be purchased from the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 700 gems each, or purchase all three for 1,890 gems. Each account can purchase up to 19 shared inventory slots at this time. This limit is not affected by the shared inventory slot provided with the Level-80 Boost with the purchase of Path of Fire or Heart of Thorns™.

A new Elonian Introductory Package is now available in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 1,800 gems. It includes a 20 Slot Black Lion Satchel, 5 Black Lion Chest Keys, 5 Heroic Boosters, a Desert Explorer Kit, and a Black Lion Sample Pack.

A new Forged Outfit is now available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.

For a limited time, the Scientific Weapon Collection has returned to the Black Lion Weapons Specialist for 5 Black Lion Claim Tickets. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.

Improvements

Six new exclusive hair colors, six new exclusive hair-accessory dyes, 2 additional human hairstyles, and several bald options from Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ have been added and are available in Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair Kits, found in the Utility category of the Gem Store.

The Living World Season 3 Complete Pack now includes Episode 6 and is available for 960 gems in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store.

The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Elonian Seeker's Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.

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- The Mini Green Raptor Hatchling has been added as the new guaranteed item. Use the Mystic Forge to unlock the whole family.
- The new Jackal Pup Backpack is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Elonian Seeker's Chest.
- The new Hydra Staff is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Elonian Seeker's Chest.
- The new Golden Black Lion Chest Key is now available as a rare drop in the Elonian Seeker's Chest. It unlocks a Black Lion Chest with a guaranteed uncommon-or-better item.
- The Timekeeper Weapon Collection is now available as a rare drop for the duration of the Elonian Seeker's Chest.
- The Pact Fleet Weapon Collection is now available as a super-rare drop for the duration of the Elonian Seeker's Chest.
- The Black Lion Exclusives Chest has been removed.

The Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock, available inside the Black Lion Chest, has been updated with around 175 new items.

You can now access waypoints in the Tyria Underground and Depths from the Mistlock Sanctuary.

Using the Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey while in the Mistlock Sanctuary will now redirect you to your previous public PvE map.

Domain of Vabbi: Fixed a stalling issue with an event in the Garden of Seborhin in which harpies attacked the spa.

Fixed a bug in which the Harrier stat combo was not available for armor sets using the Warbeast skins. Players will need to reselect the stats for these gears, but the selection should include the Harrier combination of Power, Healing, and Concentration.

Fixed a bug with the recipe for Harrier's Warbeast Pauldrons that prevented them from being craftable. Additionally, we have changed the text of the insignia used to more clearly identify that it is used for the Warbeast and Bounty Hunter armor sets.

Players may now use their mounts in the Gilded Hollow and Lost Precipice guild halls.

Fixed a bug that prevented the recipe for the Insignia of the Spearmarshal from being discovered.

Fixed an issue allowing the Path of Fire Survival Package to be purchased more than 2 times per account.

Fixed an edge case that caused "The Sacrifice" to stall if a player completed everything and then called Taimi outside of the highlands. If you are in this state, the quest should repair itself upon returning to highlands or calling Taimi again.

Fixed an issue that blocked the Nevermore legendary staff collection in Dragon's Stand.

Guardian—Unrelenting Criticism: Fixed a bug with this trait that was granting its bleeding chance to non-axe weapons.

Fixed an issue with the stats available to certain banners. These items now can choose from all Path of Fire stat combos, and have been set to the appropriate level. If a character less than level 80 was using one of these, it has been placed in your inventory.

Ranger—Soulbeast: Fixed a bug that caused a ranger using the Beastmode skill to leave that mode when upleveling or downleveling due to zoning.

Fixed a bug that caused enemies in stealth to reappear in their original location when leaving stealth.

Fixed a bug in which exotic-quality named Mordant weapons could not be equipped.

Fixed a bug that prevented players from progressing the Insect Slayer achievement.

Weaver: Fixed a bug that caused the elementalist's off-hand attunement to disappear when dismounting.

Fixed a bug with the purchase price of replacements for Garden of the Gods, Book of Vlast, The Legacy, Intelligence Report: Palawa Joko I., and Order of Whispers mission dispatches.

Blessings acquired from Elisa in pursuit of the Recitation of the Litany of Deeds can now properly be consumed for trade contracts.

Fixed an issue with the recipe for the Harrier's Warbeast Vambraces, which should now create the appropriate item.

Fixed a bug that could cause certain mounts to unexpectedly dismount the player when their engage skill was used.

Elon Riverlands: Fixed a bug that caused Foreman Erran to continuously try to destroy the Deadhouse gate. Second Spear Olishar has been adjusted to reliably respawn to aid in events.

Holosmith—Coolant Blast: Fixed an issue that caused the heated version of this skill to sometimes heal for different amounts on each pulse. Fixed an issue that caused this skill to pulse chill to nearby foes after the initial chill burst.

Recipes for Spearmarshal's armor pieces are now account bound.

Mirage—False Oasis: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to sometimes heal for different amounts on each pulse.

The following traits will now be properly reapplied when the player dismounts: Brave Stride, Riddle of Sand, and Opening Strike.

Spellbreaker—Aura Slicer: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not display the "Removes Immobilize" skill fact when traited with Warrior's Sprint.

Fixed a bug that allowed dodges to be queued while using the mirage specialization.

Fixed an issue that caused an event chain in the Domain of Vabbi to sometimes stall out.

Warrior—Combustive Shot: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to have an incorrect radius and decal when used with the spellbreaker specialization.

Fixed a bug that caused the recipe to craft the Brandspark ring (the version with Power, Healing Power, and Concentration) to identify the "Cursed Ring" instead of the "Brandspark Ring" as its item.

Some recipes for Sunspear weapons have had their names clarified and updated.

Ranger—Quick Draw: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from affecting Maul while in Beastmode.

Guardian—Symbol of Vengeance: Fixed a bug in which this skill caused less damage than expected.

Fixed a bug that prevented the discovery of the Inscription of the Spearmarshal.

Guardian—Legendary Lore: Fixed a bug in which this trait affected the Quickfire trait. Legendary Lore no longer increases the quantity of burning inflicted by Tome of Justice skills by 1; it now increases the base duration (which is affected by Expertise) by 20%.

Crafting new 32-slot bags will result in account-bound bags that do not bind to characters. If you have a 32-slot bag that is bound to a character, you can trade it to merchants in the Free City of Amnoon for a version of the same bag that does not bind to characters.